Management

Hamilton’s father and former manager Anthony expressed a clear view about the root of his son’s problems in the aftermath of the Singapore race:

“You look up and down the pit lane and every driver, except for Lewis [Hamilton], has a driver-manager in his life, not people from a company.

“I am sure his management are very good ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ I don?óÔé¼Ôäót know ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ but Formula 1 drivers need people personally involved in the driver?óÔé¼Ôäós life because it is a big pressure. They have got to be here and I don?óÔé¼Ôäót think you can do the job by sending someone else.”

The elder Hamilton obviously has a vested interest in making such remarks. But we shouldn’t be quick to dismiss them – Hamilton enjoyed his greatest successes in Formula 1 under his father’s management.

Anthony Hamilton now manages Paul di Resta

And his father’s new young charge, Paul di Resta, is clearly thriving, finished one place behind Hamilton in Singapore.

Hamilton is not the only driver without a conventional F1 management team. Sebastian Vettel doesn’t have one at all, and it clearly isn’t holding him back.

Hamilton has defended his right to pursue interests outside of Formula 1. Even so, it seems they are a more consuming part of his life than they are for his rivals at the sharp end of the grid.

Nor can it be said that his closest advisors have helped him handle his recent problems well: recall his notorious outburst at Monaco and his vanishing act last Sunday having failed to given an account of his latest blunder.

Button

Button celebrates victory in Canada

When Jenson Button joined McLaren at the beginning of last year, the widely-held view was that he was risking his reputation by joining ‘Hamilton’s team’.

Hamilton has never finished behind a team mate in the world championship. But Button has beaten him in all of the last four races. With five rounds to go he is 17 points ahead – a gap that would be far greater without his car problems in Britain and Germany.

Of course, Hamilton is no stranger to having a top-line driver in the other car. His F1 reputation was built on that stunning debut season alongside Fernando Alonso.

But while Hamilton has Button out-classed on Saturdays (10-4 this year, 13-6 last year), in the races it is increasingly a different matter.

As was expected before the season began, Button has usually been able to coax more life out of Pirelli’s soft rubber than Hamilton. This has clearly helped him in some races this year.

But there’s more to it than that. Like Hamilton, Button has had to make his way through the field at times this year, and has done so without falling into the traps his team mate has.

Mistakes

Button benefits as Hamilton hits Webber in Montreal

Whatever problem Hamilton is having, the result is a growing number of costly mistakes that have ruined his season.

In Canada, a race he could have won, he had two collisions in the space of four laps – one with Mark Webber followed by terminal contact with his team mate. He was also in the hunt for victory at Spa before colliding with Kamui Kobayashi.

On top of that are the detail mistakes: the wrong tyres and the spin in Hungary, not putting a banker lap in during qualifying in Monaco and so on.

These kind of mistakes are not a new feature in Hamilton’s driving. Even in his championship year he had that notorious collision with Kimi R?â?ñikk?â?Ânen in the Montreal pit lane, and copped another penalty in the following race by going off the track while passing Sebastian Vettel.

But of late the costly mistakes have far outweighed the command performances. Both his wins this year – in China and Germany – were from the top drawer. Those aside, there’s been little for Hamilton to cherish in 2011.

A single answer?

When trying to work out what’s going wrong between a driver’s brain and the steering wheel, it’s tempting to fall for single-line explanations: ‘his team mate’s rattled his cage’, ‘he can’t make the tyres work’.

The heart of the matter is rarely that simple or convenient. And there’s always much more going on beneath the surface than the glimpses on show at a race weekend.

There are enough worrying signs around Hamilton to conclude that something fundamental is amiss here. Are we looking at a driver whose team mate is putting him under pressure, who can’t make his racing car behave the way he wants it to – and perhaps doesn’t care about it quite as much as he should?

Whatever the root of the problem is, it threatens to turn the career of a driver who produced one of the greatest rookie performances ever seen, into a case study in squandered potential.

hamilton will not win another wdc unless he moves team.
the relationship were he is has become stale and check out the body language of the people in his crew when he is around how nobody is smiling or just having a chat and then look at buttons crew and it leads you to believe that hamilton is not well liked and is too formal. when you look at redbull you see that they have allot of fun and I think that comes across in the racing.

Even with all of Vettel’s success, the spotlight remains on Hamilton.
You can find all the logical reasons to deny it, but in the back of your minds the feeling remains – he is the best, and the thought is uncomfortable.

Lewis seems to be getting a lot of penalties every time he sneezes â€“ like what Prisoner Monkey said â€“ If a teacher has a problematic child they will continue issue punishments until they behave. And if this is the case then it is justifiable regardless of whom it is.

I donâ€™t think Lewis is threatened by Jenson for the following reasons;
* They get along off the track, and being the same nationality also helps
* Lewis recommended that McLaren pursue Jenson as a worthy team mate
* Lewis has confidence in his own abilities but is respectful that Jenson is getting more out of the car than he currently can.
* Neither Lewis not Jenson have purposely wrecked each otherâ€™s race like Alonso did to Lewis in the first year with the pit stop fiasco â€“ same with Villeneuve and Jenson when they were at BAR. So they get along while on the track too. A majority of their stoushes on track have been good and neither have ran each other off the track. With the exception of Canada â€“ where Lewis was coming up the side of Jenson in the wet. Lewis would have been in the Â¾ blind spot and the spray from the cars would have been impossible to see anyone behind (hence the FIA mandates the flashing red light at the rear) â€“ perhaps the FIA needs to look at flashing front lights for wet races. All you guys thinking it was Jensonâ€™s fault are delusional.

It seems you Lewis fan boys seem to be more threatened by Jensonâ€™s performance than Lewis is. Itâ€™s probably the same group of people that donâ€™t believe Jenson deserved his WDC in 2009. Some of you claim itâ€™s Jensonâ€™s people that are giving him the media hype, but you know, itâ€™s Lewis thatâ€™s hired a marketing firm to manage him â€“ figure that one out?

It takes good results to get good comments, and crashes to get negative ones.

Whatever the root of the problem is, it threatens to turn the career of a driver who produced one of the greatest rookie performances ever seen, into a case study in squandered potential.

My thoughts exactly Keith, and as a big Hamilton fan, that’s what worries me at the moment.

For me, there’s that 5% that was there in 07 and 08, and to a slightly lesser extent in 09 and 10, that 5% that makes him such a great driver is just below the surface right now. He’s putting his car into positions it shouldn’t be in (Monaco, Canada, Singapore etc) and when he goes too far the other way (Monza) he’s not the Lewis I know.

I feel confident he’ll find it again, but he has to find himself first. (Yes, I know that’s cheesy but it’s the best I could come up with. :) )

This Headline is ignorant of an f1 enthusiast like Keith.
Nothing has gone wrong with Hamilton,
he is just trying hardest, than what the car can do (superman)……..
Lewis wants to beat the Red-bull (Vettel) not to be second(JB) and play it safe…..
he is thus taking unusually more risks, to squeeze better performance out of that car, there is no way LEWIS would have been ahead of Vettel by driving normally, givin the abnormal superiority of Vettels car, in a 2nd/3rd best car on the grid..
no1 is still his default preference, please note, most of his, if not all , his penalties this year are a result of an attempt to overtake and gain a position thus move ahead and win races not bad driving perse….i thought this is what winning is all about….Hamilton knows well the world never remembers No 2, No3, smooth as silk drivers……it remembers spectacular drivers and winners…..ONLY NO 1…now that is impossible for him to win the championship, he still tries to win races, becoz thats what he does…winning,.

The headline is fine. Some of the crashes he’s had are from situations he probably would have cleanly made the pass in the previous 4 seasons. His errors haven’t been in the “pushing hard to win” mould of Monza 09.

lewis wants to win races,because thats the only way to win the championship.coming 2nd and 3rd wont win you the championship.this is why lewis goes all out for wins.its all or nothing.at the end of the day his team mate hasnt come close to winning the championship himself this season.
lewis doesnt need to be more like button,he just needs to get back to his best.he got 2 more dnfs than button last season and still finished the season with 26 more points,so button with 2dnfs like lewis this season should finish the season with more points than lewis easily considering all the praise he’s been getting.
if he doesnt that’ll say alot about each driver.

Lewis does not impress me at all. He has his moments as a driver, but as a person he is truly lacking. His personality appears phony and manufactured. He demonstrates little growth and does not seem to learn from his mistakes, making the same errors time and again then continues to blame other drivers, stewards, etc. Champions do not act this way .. there is a reason Vettel is dominating. He has developed, he has grown, he has learned from his mistakes and each race he gets stronger and more formidable. In short he is leaving Lewis behind on the track and in ability.

Constantly having to deny rumours about getting married to his much older girlfriend can’t help his state of mind too much. I suspect that behind the scenes there is/has been more pressure on Hamilton here than is common knowledge.

Even as an Alonso fan I want to see Hamilton back on form; at least when he wins a race I usually feel that I’ve witnessed a worthy winner unlike the utterly hollow feeling I have seeing Vettel win yet another race from pole.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he upsets the Whitmarsh/Button/BBC love-in by finishing ahead of Button this season.

The problem with Lewis is that he believes he’s channeling the Late Ayrton Senna’s spirit in his racing. This would be fine if Lewis was indeed in same league as the late master but unfortunately he is simply not. There will never be another Ayrton Senna. If Lewis is serious about leaving his mark in the sport he would do very well instead to take a leaf or two out of the Alain Prost book of cerebral racing without overly abandoning the jaw droppingly blsitering natural speed that has come to define and deify in the eyes of his many fans.

The problem with Lewis is that he believes heâ€™s channeling the Late Ayrton Sennaâ€™s spirit in his racing. This would be fine if Lewis was indeed in same league as the late master but unfortunately he is simply not. There will never be another Ayrton Senna. If Lewis is serious about leaving his mark in the sport he would do very well instead to take a leaf or two out of the Alain Prost book of cerebral racing without overly abandoning the jaw droppingly blsitering natural speed that has come to define and deify him in the eyes of his many fans.

Lewis is simply the BEST in F1 right now. Vettel is NOT on his level (Vettel is probably in the same league as Button, Rosberg, Massa and the like).
Lewis’ only competition on the grid right is Alonso, whom he beat a rookie :-)